Treason: Book Two of the Grimoire Saga (a Young Adult Fantasy series)

by S. M. Boyce

  The vyrn’s shoulders relaxed. Its eyes softened, and its tail came to a stop. It still watched him, but now it inched closer.

  Braeden tensed and dug his fingers into the tree bark on his fallen log, but made himself sit still.

  A twig cracked beneath the vyrn’s foot, sliced in half by one of its silver claws, but the creature didn’t flinch. It only stopped when it stood directly in front of Braeden. It sniffed the meat in his palm. It snapped, snatching the jerky from his hand in a move that could have easily taken fingers with it. Braeden tightened his hand into a fist and slowly pulled away, happy to have all his digits.

  The vyrn lowered its head until it was eye level with him. Braeden had no idea what he was supposed to do. He’d always heard of vyrns killing yakona and everything else they came across. This one—well, it looked like it wanted him to pet it. Maybe it was rabid.

  He shook the thought from his head. His fingers twitched as he stretched out his hand to the beast’s nose. It grunted and flinched before he could touch it.

  Part of Braeden expected the thing to snap at him or to try to take off his hand. Another part expected the creature to run off, scared of him like almost every other animal he’d met in his life. Yet another part—the smallest part—hoped it would let down its guard.

  The vyrn sighed, shooting hot air over Braeden’s hand. It relaxed and lowered its nose into his hand.

  I’m Iyra. And no, I am not rabid.

  Braeden resisted the impulse to pull back in surprise. At her touch, a female voice had crept into his mind.

  The creature—Iyra—snorted a few times in quick succession, which Braeden could only guess was a laugh. She never pulled away from his hand.

  You’re a funny Heir. Nicest of them yet. Strange.

  “Yes, I’m pretty strange,” Braeden agreed with a laugh. He rubbed her muzzle.

  She hummed. Why are you sitting out here alone?

  “I need to find a way out of the Stele.”

  She laughed again. You are royalty. Can you not leave your own kingdom?

  Too many thoughts crashed through Braeden’s mind to articulate just one. Iyra tensed as he thought of Carden’s torture, of receding to Kara in his mind, of his mother’s face distorting into the slivers. His history with Carden passed in the matter of a few seconds, all broken images strung together with grief and regret.

  He didn’t know if he’d done that, or if it was all Iyra.

  I am sorry for your pain, Braeden.

  “What—?” he asked.

  The vyrn nuzzled his chest. I share your thoughts when we communicate.

  “I didn’t know a vyrn could do that.”

  Most yakona never try to learn about my kind. So many attempt to tame us, and they die trying. But not you. I’ve been watching you, and you don’t move like the rest. You’re different, somehow. Kinder, maybe. I prefer to help those who deserve it. It’s clear you need to find this young woman of yours, so I will do what I can. I can get you to her faster.

  He sighed with relief. “Thank you.”

  Now, how should we leave?

  Braeden hesitated. There was a thin trail, hardly used, that ran through the mountains. It was the closest to Ayavel, if Braeden remembered the way properly.

  “Can you give me a boost?” he asked, nodding to Iyra’s back.

  She knelt instead. Braeden jumped onto the vyrn’s back and set his hands along her short neck. Iyra jumped up and bolted toward the path, apparently having read his thoughts as to where to go.

  He hoped this would work.

  Balancing on Iyra was one of the easiest things Braeden had ever done in his life. Her back dipped into a seat, as if built to carry riders. Steering, too, was simple. As long as he touched her, he could hear her thoughts—and apparently, she could hear his. He tried to keep his thoughts of Kara to a minimum, but barely managed. Thankfully, Iyra didn’t mind. She had seen his memories; she understood what Kara meant to him.

  Iyra charged into a tunnel through the mountain when she neared it. They were close to a lichgate at the edge of the Stele, though Braeden had no idea what he’d do when he got there. He was trying not to think about it.

  The tunnel was easily hundreds of feet long, but Iyra crossed it entirely too soon. Sunlight flared into view at the other end. As they grew closer, a figure blocked the light.

  Someone yelled. Iyra roared, the rumble thundering through the cave in echoes. She lunged at the figure, throwing Braeden off her back. He rolled, landing with a hard thud against the cave wall.

  When Braeden recovered, Iyra had her teeth around a Stelian’s neck. The guard twitched one last time before he fell limp in her mouth. She spat him out and walked to Braeden, nudging him with her head.

  He would have warned others. I had no choice.

  “You did the right thing,” Braeden said, patting her neck.

  She hummed again. This is the border, my friend. I cannot force you past it if Blood Carden has forbidden you from leaving. You must send us across.

  He eyed the forest beyond the tunnel. Snow lined the treetops and covered a small clearing beyond the exit. A branch, bent beneath the weight of the snow on it, finally bent too far, releasing its burden to the ground with a thump. Otherwise, nothing moved in the icy meadow.

  Braeden walked forward, Iyra’s footsteps following him as he moved. His feet slowed as he neared the lichgate at the end of the tunnel, his body obeying the mandate to remain in the kingdom. Finally, his feet stopped altogether. He urged himself forward, but his body did not move.

  Iyra nudged him.

  A flash of white broke across his vision, brighter even than the reflection of the sun off the snow through the lichgate. Peace engulfed him in that second, and he saw Kara’s face. He smiled.

  The peace disappeared as quickly as it had come, but Kara remained. She stood at the far edge of the clearing, her face so pale he couldn’t even see her freckles. Frost lined her eyelashes. Her breath came in quick bursts, leaving thin pools of steam on the air.

  “You’re better than him,” she said.

  Frustration churned in his chest. The shame of a life spent running made his heart race. His fingers itched with anger and rage and the desire to kill something, but his feet wouldn’t move.

  “Braeden.”

  He closed his eyes to shut her out. He needed to focus. Hatred burned in his gut. He shouldn’t have to fight. He should be able to live a peaceful, quiet life if he wanted.

  “Braeden.”

  He snapped his eyes open. “What!”

  She stood just a foot from him. His jaw tensed. She smiled, and the anger in his gut melted away. The tension in his shoulders dissolved.

  She reached for him, and he took her hand. Her cold fingers sent a shiver through him. She wasn’t real, so how could she be solid?

  He closed his eyes and shut the thought away, focusing all of his energy into his feet instead. All he had to do was walk forward. That wasn’t impossible. That, he could do.

  He pulled the air to push him forward. He borrowed energy from the ground to nudge him on. He called on the fiery hatred within him to grant him this one ounce of freedom, to let him do something good for once, to—

  A ripple of ice shot through his veins. He shuddered. Kara’s frigid hand disappeared from his. Weight lifted from his shoulders. Strength tore through him from nowhere. Blue light flared through his closed eyelids. His gut twisted.

  How odd.

  He opened his eyes. He stood at the edge of the clearing, where he’d seen Kara. She was gone, undeniably an apparition he’d created, but that wasn’t the point.

  He turned back to the tunnel. Iyra’s green eyes widened. She leaned on her front paws, head to the ground as if she couldn’t believe this any more than he did.

  Braeden had done the impossible: He defied Carden’s order.

  He had no idea if he had broken the blood loyalty or if he had merely learned how to disobey, but it didn’t matter. He wanted to jump and flip and sc
ream in happiness, but he didn’t have time.

  “Hide that guard in the bushes over there, Iyra,” he said.

  She nodded, snapping out of her daze, and obeyed. She bit the guard’s arm. Black dust blew from his skin as she dragged him to the edge of the forest and dumped him in the dense brush. He’d be hidden there. As far as Carden knew, Braeden couldn’t disobey an order and was still in the Stele. They had no reason to believe he had anything to do with the guard unless they realized he was gone.

  Braeden was coming back. He would help Kara first and hide her away, but this was the best chance he’d ever had to destroy Carden. He didn’t quite understand what defying a mandate could do, but he’d done it once and could probably do it again. He would wait until the opportune moment to turn on his father and end the tyranny.

  He had reasons to live now—not just Kara, but his people, too. And when he became the Stelian Blood, he would do everything in his power to never be like his father.

  Chapter 20

  Choices

  Kara curled into a ball on the bed in her cell, the ache in her head growing stronger with each heartbeat. She wanted desperately to sleep, but anxiety twisted within her. Her convoluted thoughts kept her awake—as did the fear of what would happen in the morning.

  The door creaked open. Kara peeked out of the corner of her eye. Gavin closed the door, locking them both inside.

  She tensed.

  He held up his hands. “I just want to talk.”

  Too many rebuttals raced through her mind to pick just one—oh, now he wanted to talk, when she could barely move; why hadn’t he stood up for her; how could he let this happen; what was wrong with all of them?

  The Hillsidian Blood walked over to her and sat down on the edge of the bed with a sigh.

  “I haven’t slept through the night since Mother died,” he confessed.

  Kara eased away, but each movement made her head hurt more. She finally stopped when her head rested against a pillow. She closed her eyes. It wasn’t like she was a match for him in her condition, but she might as well preserve her energy in case the need to use it arose.

  She wouldn’t go down without a fight.

  Gavin cracked his neck and continued. “I thought I was ready to be the Blood, for a short while at least, but I’m not. I never fully understood how distrusting the Bloods are, or how manipulative they can be. I’m sorry you were brought into this, Kara. I tried to tell them that this plot with the muses wouldn’t work, but Aislynn said her source was certain. It seems I don’t know my mother’s friend as well as I originally thought.”

  “I wasn’t exactly expecting it either,” Kara said with a dry laugh, eyes still closed. Her head throbbed more with each word she spoke.

  Warm hands touched the sides of her face. She tensed again and opened her eyes, but she could only see patches of color. Gavin’s face came into focus above her, floating as if without a neck. She pushed the hands away.

  Gavin frowned. “I’m trying to help, Kara. Please relax.”

  He set his fingers on her head again. The ache unraveled in her forehead and neck at his touch. Warmth and a deep calm swam through her body, clearing her thoughts.

  When she opened her eyes again, she could see clearly. The throbbing and tension disappeared. She sat up, marveling at the sudden clarity. Her body still moved a second slower than she meant it to, but at least the pain no longer consumed her.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “An interrogation technique. It clears the prisoner’s mind so that he can better articulate whatever he’s trying to tell me.”

  Oh.

  “That was…honest,” she said.

  He sighed. “I’ve tried manipulating you, seducing you, tricking you, controlling you. Honesty is the only thing I haven’t tried at this point. So yes, that was honest. I will try my best not to lie to you again.”

  Kara shook her head. “I don’t trust you, Gavin. I haven’t since you tricked Twin with the tiara.”

  “Again, I apologize. I know you turned her, though, and I’m not angry. She deserves to be free for what I nearly made her do to you, especially since it ended up being unnecessary.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The Blood took a deep breath and stared at the floor. “At the Gala, I let you believe that Richard berated me after you told me off about the tiara and left me in the hall with him. I let you believe that I was sorry.”

  “And that’s not the case?”

  “No. I ordered him to be silent when he did try to scold me. I then had my best trackers follow you to the village. I and three of my best soldiers know where it is.”

  Kara’s heart skipped beats. She stopped breathing. “You WHAT?”

  “It was a gamble. You are unaccustomed to our methods of stealth, so you didn’t sense the trackers, but they almost lost you several times—your wolf is fast.”

  Kara gagged. He’d had trackers follow her back when she first found the village. He’d known all this time.

  Gavin rubbed his face. “I just had to know where you were going. That they followed you to the entrance to your legendary village was sheer luck. I know the temple has to be the way in—it was clever, putting the village there—but my men were forced to retreat when they saw you speak to the lyth. There were only a few of them, and they were no match for such a creature. It’s brutal, fast, and always hungry. We would need an army to kill it, which is the only way to pass without its master’s—your—approval.

  “I had a few choices, none of which I liked. The most obvious was to declare war against you by openly attacking the village. We would have overtaken it, but it would have made the other Bloods furious. I’d have made a move of war without speaking to them first, and it would have violated the treaty I had just talked them into signing later at the Gala. I would also have a powerful new weapon—you. They would have singled me out as a traitor, and even while controlling you, I would have lost to them if they attacked.

  “The other option was to confess what I knew to the Bloods and work together to overtake your village. The treasures and resources rumored to exist there were likely enough leverage for me to bargain to keep you. All I wanted was your power against Carden. They could keep the gold. I couldn’t care less about material things.”

  “No, all you want is revenge,” Kara spat.

  He chewed on his lip and nodded. “But telling the Bloods risked exposing my upper hand, and I therefore didn’t like that idea, either.”

  “Do you always think like that? With cold calculation?”

  Gavin caught her eye. She wanted to look away, to show her disgust or grimace, but his cold gaze snared her. She couldn’t look away. She shuddered.

  He stared again at the floor, and Kara resisted the impulse to sigh with relief.

  “I chose instead to confide in someone I could trust,” he continued. “I couldn’t tell Richard. All he cared about was protecting the Vagabond, even when leveraging you could avenge Mother.”

  “You have to be kidding—”

  “And none of Mother’s generals had ever dealt with such delicate matters. I didn’t feel I could trust them.” Gavin carried on as if she hadn’t spoken, pushing through her words without pausing to let her in.

  Apparently, he hadn’t come for conversation. This was a confession.

  It seemed like he needed to get this off his chest. His life must have been a lonely one if he hadn’t confessed any of this sooner. He must not have had anyone to talk to.

  Kara sat back and listened. She could grant him that much. Besides, it would likely be helpful. In Ourea, information was more valuable than money.

  Gavin ran a hand through his hair. “In the end, I turned to Aislynn and told her everything the night after Braeden’s trial. I needed someone to trust, and Mother always seemed to believe in her. Of the Bloods, Aislynn had the most experience with diplomatic negotiation. She always spoke of peace and unity. I knew we had similar goals, she and I, and she had a compass
ion that would point me in the right direction.”

  He took a deep breath. “Or so I thought. I’ll never forget the look on her face when I told her I knew your village’s location. It was glee. Unadulterated joy, like she’d just figured out the winning move in a game. I had no idea she’d already been planning to lure you as bait to catch the muses, but it was as if the village was the final piece to her puzzle.

  “She called a meeting right then and told the rest of the Bloods everything, without even telling me what she was about to do.

  “I was horrified. A guard of mine overheard her invite you to Ayavel during the Gala—and I suddenly understood why she’d offered. She’d wanted to lure you there under the premise of safety. She revealed her plan to use you as bait, since by then Braeden had left to find the Heirs. You were unconscious and exposed after his trial, though we didn’t know then that you’d disappeared from the room Braeden had taken you to. We all know he cares for you, that much has been evident for a while now. He would have interfered to protect you from what Aislynn was planning, so he needed to be out of the picture.

  “They also acknowledged that we would lose your trust after using you, so a bargaining began before I could stop it. Aislynn was given the power of the muse she stole, and Ithone, Frine, and I would duel for the right to control you after the process was complete. The losing pair would be left splitting up the spoils from your village, and all kingdoms would be evenly rewarded for their contributions.

  “I lost the upper hand, even though I knew better than to interfere with the drenowith. The other Bloods were nearly salivating at the prospect of controlling such power. I never realized how excellent a speaker Aislynn is, either. She spun the story, making it seem as though it was all my idea. That kept the suspicion off of me and made me seem like the good little boy, reporting back to his superiors. I lost all say in the matter.

  “The truth came out, then, about how Frine and Ithone watched you in your time with them. You know the saying—keep your friends close, your enemies closer. They feared the legend of the first Vagabond. They had no idea of your power, so they gave you free rein. They wanted to observe you to see how much you truly knew. The first Vagabond was a legend, and here he was—reincarnated, they believed—in the form of a young human girl. It baffled them. It baffled all of us, though I know you aren’t a reincarnated soul. The Vagabond never really died, did he?”